Hi everybody and welcome once again to the Throop fishery report here on the Davis Tackle website.

Monday, and once again there were very few anglers on the banks, this is the same as it was last week, we put the empty banks down to xmas and the shopping, well xmas has now gone and we have to find another excuse, it could be that they have no money for bait, or no money for petrol, or......no lets forget it, lets get on with this Monday, well as I have already said the banks are again empty, those that did venture out had one or two fish, the best reported catch of the day went to Andy Wyatt, who used trotting tactics to land 6 chub to 4lb, well done Andy and many thanks for your report, further up the river was angler Stuart Jupp, who was concentrating on catching some pike, using rover tactics, Stuart did manage to take one pike which was a lower double fish.

Stuart does grace the banks from time to time with a good deal of success, mainly through sheer hard work, watch out for Stuart's feature on Throop which will be published in this month or possibly next months edition of "Improve your coarse fishing " , it should be a good read and no doubt a few good tips.

Tuesday and I was working very hard trotting.......down the M3 and the M25 on my way to my sons birthday in Essex, it never stopped raining all the way there and all the way back, 5.5 hours of driving in non stop rain, it did make me think, I wonder how many times my windscreen wipers went backwards and forwards, of course we will now see the river rising once again.

Wednesday and as predicted the river was now rising, once again the river banks are almost deserted, I was feeling very tired after all that travelling on the previous day, I made a few phone calls for some reports, but the same old story was being told, lots of anglers have not been out for weeks, but there were two anglers that were fishing here at Throop, with pike the target, and they were Southampton pair, Colin Bishop and Tony Rolfe, who braved the wet weather to do a bit of roving with great success, and believe me, this pair walked their socks off, they ended up in the car park to tally up their shared catch, they had 11 takes which resulted in 8 fish, two doubles, one of 13.5lb & 10.5lb and the other six weighed up to 7lb, so all in all a fair days fishing, many thanks lads for your report and good fishing in the future.

Thursday and its the last day of the year and I am back on the river to carry out a few fishery jobs that need doing, and with the river running high and coloured with a water temperature of 42f / 5.5c and not an angler in site, it seemed a good time to carry out these jobs, so firstly it was time to oil all the locks on the gates at the Millpool and the gate on beat one, with this done it was time to cut back a few nasty overhanging branches at the back of the concrete triangle, this job done and I will now make my way to Chibbs Pool to cut a couple of more overhanging branches, on approaching the pool I can see that there is someone fishing there, as I approach I can see that it is Keith Humphreys, ( so there is a Humphrey about ),Keith has not had a bite, so we shared some coffee and a couple of coconut macaroons and practiced some centre pin casting before I went on my way, next job was oil the locks at Boulder Weir, this was done and I then made my way opposite the Wendy House along the footpath, this was a mistake, with the water rising I overstepped the mark, filled my boots with freezing cold water, slipped and ripped my cammo trousers, so a happy new year to me and time to go home, just a couple of anglers and no fish caught, here’s Keith at Chibbs Pool.

Friday and its New Years Day and the river is slowly subsiding, it has dropped about two feet overnight, the colour is slowly dropping out, there are just five anglers on the fishery up to 2.00pm and only one fish caught, and that went to Ringwood member Sean Dent with a lovely pike of 14lb 8oz, well done Sean and many thanks for your report and photo.

Saturday and there were a few anglers out today and they were mainly fishing for pike, only one was reported to an unknown angler of about 5lb, and that was about it as regards the fishing, the river has dropped even more and the colour is looking very good with all the nasty chocolate gone.

We have had lots of very heavy frosts and the forecast for the next couple of weeks don’t look too good, so we can only keep on trying and braving the cold.

I do have some good news, in last weeks report we had a picture of BATMAN holding a pike, well I think that I have discovered the identity of him, I believe it is .....CAM CLEARY, and he is holding a perch, believed to weigh 2lb 2oz, and could have been caught in the same swim as the pike.

Cam with a nice perch weighing 2lb 2oz

The Caped Crusader apprehends a suspected serial killer

that has been terrorising the local gudgeon community.

Sunday and I decided to do a bit of fishing which proved unsuccessful, I trotted bread and maggots which resulted in no bites at all, young Scott was upstream of me using the same tactics, he too could not get a bite, but downstream Keith Humphreys caught three chub to 4lb, and two of those was on my bread. Further up the river Simon Ebborn took five chub to over 5lb+ on the feeder, so that was the best catch of the day, well done Si.

We have had a miserable year for river conditions, the lowest for many years, the river up and down like a yo-yo, and conditions have just not settled, we have not seen many of our top anglers on the fishery in recent weeks, lets hope the last few weeks of the season will bring bumper results.

If you have any fish catches or photo's please e-mail me on hutch29@btinternet.com please put the subject THROOP.

You can phone me with your catches or if you require river conditions on 07740777967.